America Loved Lucy

April 27, 1989

All it takes is her first name - Lucy - to bring to mind her flame-red hair, her loud-mouthed antics, her hilarious, non-stop misfortunes. Lucille Ball died Wednesday but her memory will live on for years to come.

More than any other woman in America - and more than most men - Ball was comedy. Her show so dominated television that she and her then-husband, Desi Arnaz, were given an $8 million contract in 1953 - unheard of in that era and infrequent still today.

She commanded that kind of money because she delivered the audiences. Americans by the millions planned their weekly schedules around her show: An estimated two-thirds of the nation's sets were tuned to Lucy each week. And when her real-life pregnancy was worked into her show and her character, Lucy Ricardo, delivered little Ricky, some 44 million viewers shared her labor pains. That's more than watched Ike's inauguration.

Her show not only made her the queen of television comedy in this country but her reruns have endured, and today are seen and enjoyed in more than 80 countries. Most people have their favorite episodes - some zany scheme of Lucy's sure to drive volatile husband Ricky wild, or some harebrained shenanigans that required the help of their neighbors, Ethel and Fred.

Many of the episodes have become classics: Lucy being attacked by dough after putting too much yeast in the bread; Lucy getting drunk on the alcohol-loaded health tonic for which she was rehearsing a commercial; the grape-stamping episode in which Lucy gets in a fight in a large wine vat.

Those shows are as funny today as they were 30 years ago. They are timeless comedy. Lucille Ball is no longer with us, but we're still laughing.